New Anchor

 On 28 November I attended a monthly "Topics Night" presentation by Kim Klaka and Richard Macfarlane into recent advances in anchors and anchoring.  I was so impressed with the performance of the new generation of anchors (e.g. much quicker to bed down, significantly more holding power) that after some investigation I settled on a Sarca Excel No. 5, one of the new generation of anchors at a cost of .  I chose the Sarca to replace my 16kg Delta at a price of $749 because it is Australian designed and built and has an extremely good reputation, particularly in Tasmania with it demanding conditions. One message from the presentation was the advice to purchase an anchor two sizes heavier than that recommended by the various vendors, so I purchased the No. 5 at 22kg (48.5 lb) rather than the recommended No. 4 at 16kg (37 lb) which listed 12m as the maximum suitable boat length. The extra weight of the anchor should not be a problem for me because from now on it will be the electric windlass that will raise and lower it.  The extra 6kg of weight on the bow from the heavier anchor will be more than compensated by the fact that we have replaced the previous 38m of all chain rode with 30m of chain and 20m of rope.  That shorter chain represents a reduction of 19kg in weight.

Peter helped me make the anchor change on 28 November.  

Peter tidying up extracted rode, foot on last of new rode

 I fed the Delta anchor and its all chain rode from the bow of Pachuca directly to Peter who was on the jetty and placed the tackle onto one of the club carts.  Peter then fed me the 20m of rope attached to 30m of chain (10mm or 3/8" dia) which I passed around the windlass and directly into the chain locker.  Last came the Sarca anchor, which from memory had already been shackled to the chain by Peter. The entire operation went as planned and very well. 

While  I was at it I replaced the "spare" 16 kg Swarbrick "fisherman" anchor with the heavier 20kg Swarbrick. The Swarbrick is more than a spare.  It is my "go to" anchor for unknown or difficult holding ground, and also my last-resort survival anchor.

New Sarca Excel No. 5 Anchor

The next step, to take the boat out and test the new anchor setup, particularly how the windlass handles the change from chain to rope and vice versa.  This was delayed because the anchor foot switch at the bow was not working, which surprised me because the switch was fairly new and had worked well the last time that I had used it.

Later I removed the switch and found that the electrical cabling was badly corroded at the end.  In fact, one wire broke off completely as I lifted out the switch.  This was result of my inexperience many years earlier, either I had used ordinary house wiring for the cable run between the windlass below and the foot switch which had to operate in extremely wet conditions.  It did not take me long to establish a firm policy of using only tinned marine grade wiring on the boat.

White sheath of corroded wiring replaced with marine grade

For various reasons it was 3 January before I was able to complete the replacement of the cable run.  Fortunately I had taken photographs and made a good sketch of the wiring, so the foot switch worked on the first try.